One of the bright prospects for a medal in the London Games, double trap marksman Ronjan Sodhi, reached yet another milestone in his decorated career, as he was ranked No.1 in the world, as per the latest rankings released by the ISSF on Monday.
A gold medallist in the World Cup Finals in Turkey last year, the 31-year-old Ronjan had recently won the silver medal in the Beijing World Cup to clinch the Olympic quota place. He followed that with a bronze medal in the next World Cup in Maribor.
The Punjab lad had won the World Cup gold medals in Belgrade in 2008 (with two world records to boot) and Lonato last year. He had failed to win an entry for the Beijing Olympics despite being in the best form.
In the Asian Games in Guangzhou last year, Ronjan won the only shooting gold for India, beating two Chinese in their backyard. He also had to settle for the individual and team silver medals in the Commonwealth Games at home earlier.
Quite focused on his preparations, Ronjan has moved to his training base in Italy, to train for the forthcoming shotgun World Championship in Belgrade, Serbia, from September 5.
Peter Robert Russell Wilson of Britain jumped from No. 9 to the second spot, following a gold medal and a silver in the World Cups recently.
The reigning World champion Joshua Richmond, who shot a world record equalling 196 out of 200 in Munich last year, was reduced to the third spot.
Interestingly, the reigning Olympic champion, Walton Eller of the US, languishes at No. 33, while the silver medallist Francesco D'Aniello of Italy and bronze medallist Hu Binyuan of China are placed No. 9 and No.5 respectively.
Meanwhile, among the Indians Gagan Narang in air rifle, Sanjeev Rajput in rifle 3-position, Vijay Kumar in rapid fire pistol and Annu Raj Singh in women's air pistol were ranked No. 9.
